Change in Justice Dept. Voting Policy Reported : Reynolds Quoted as Saying It Will No Longer Consider Discrimination in Approving Plans

Assistant Atty. Gen. William Bradford Reynolds said Friday that the Justice Department will no longer consider whether election plans have discriminatory results when it approves thousands of such plans under the Voting Rights Act.

The shift, which amounts to a reversal in Reagan Administration policy, means that state and local officials in affected states will find it easier to win “pre-clearance” approval from the Justice Department for election law changes that currently could be rejected as discriminatory.

Reynolds reportedly told a political forum here that the Justice Department will soon publish final regulations allowing it to clear election law changes without considering whether those changes result in discrimination against blacks and other minorities. Nine states and parts of eight others must seek such advance approval under the Voting Rights Act.

Reynolds did not speak from a prepared text at the American Political Science Assn. forum and his remarks were described by conference participants.

Confirms Changes

Friday night, in an interview with the Associated Press, Reynolds confirmed that the changes had been drafted and would be published “in the near future” to guide affected jurisdictions.

“This is no sea change in practices and procedures,” he said. “They’re not a big deal.”

The draft regulations would implement amendments to the Voting Rights Act that broadened the law’s use of a “results test” by outlawing election changes that have the practical effect of discriminating against minorities by diluting their voting strength. Under this test, an at-large election system in a city with a large black population and no black elected officials can be viewed as discriminatory.

Part of the Voting Rights Act had previously required proof that local officials deliberately intended to discriminate against minorities, a standard that civil rights activists argued was difficult to meet, often because the responsible officials had been dead for years.

Angry Response

The proposed change drew an angry response from Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights, which said in a bipartisan report last year that using the results test in federal pre-clearance reviews “is a proper interpretation of the legislative history of the 1982 amendments.”

Edwards called the move “an outrageous retreat on the Voting Rights Act by the Justice Department.” He said the department’s pre-clearance reviews have “been the heart of the remarkable success of the Voting Rights Act. If this new proposal is adopted, Mr. Reynolds would approve discriminatory voting changes.”

Frank R. Parker of the Joint Center for Political Studies, who attended the conference, called Reynolds’ proposal “a dramatic retreat from the policy the Justice Department has been implementing since 1982. It’s a flouting of the intent of Congress. It would mean the Justice Department would be approving a large number of racially discriminatory voting law changes that would violate the Voting Rights Act.”

One federal official familiar with the issue said the change would mean that more disputed election plans would receive the government’s “stamp of approval.” The Justice Department would retain “the option of going to court to challenge the voting plan they just approved,” the official said, adding that this was unlikely because the department has filed few such lawsuits in recent years.

Called Too Burdensome

The proposal reverses the practice that the Justice Department has followed in several cases since 1982. Reynolds told the forum that the department changed its position after concluding that it would be too burdensome to consider discriminatory results in each pre-clearance review, according to participants.

Reynolds told the forum that the results test should have “no impact on the pre-clearance process,” according to one participant’s notes. Reynolds reportedly acknowledged that the department might turn around and sue the jurisdiction whose election plan it had just cleared, but said such a suit would be a better forum for pursuing the charges than a pre-clearance review.

Under the proposal--which sources said has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget--local election plans could be rejected for pre-clearance only if they had a discriminatory intent or left minorities worse off than they were previously.

The nine states whose election changes require federal approval because of a history of discrimination are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.